Do not fret, Los Angeles Clippers fans: Your team is not dysfunctional behind the scenes.
Sure, that narrative has been on life support for a while, ever since DeAndre Jordan pulled a free-agency mulligan last summer, and most definitely since the Clippers reinvested in their current core once again over the summer. But, come on, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Jordan are all alphas, and this nucleus has yet to make it out of the second round of the playoffs. That makes the Clippers an easy target for hypothetical dysfunction—especially now, with both Griffin and Paul expected to hit free agency next summer.
Except that closed-door dislike apparently only exists in theory. Raymond Felton, a new free-agent addition, can attest, per the Orange County Register‘s Dan Woike:
It wasn’t so much anything Raymond Felton had seen in the last five years of his NBA career. It was more about what he had heard.
Sure, the Clippers were a winning team, but were they a team that liked one another?
It was a question Felton knew he’d get a first-hand answer to after signing with the team as a free agent this summer, and the answer wasn’t exactly what he expected.
“I didn’t know this team was as close as it is,” Felton said before practice Sunday. “This team is actually pretty close. You hear a lot of negative stuff through the years about this team when you’re on other teams. But being here, this team is actually closer than you think. That surprised me.”
Jamal Crawford also chimed in on the subject, per Woike, and his response was pretty, ridiculously great:
Still, when players talk about the Clippers, it’s not always in the most glowing terms. Jamal Crawford has had those conversations about his team with friends around the league, and when he says the Clippers are close, he gets a common reaction.
“You get the side eye sometimes,” he said with a laugh. “But we’re in the fox hole together so we know how each other are. We know how close we are. Of course there are disagreements along the way. But we know, overall, how close we are.”
Look, teammates don’t need to like or love each other. They just need to be able to work together, and the Clippers, for all their past faults and foibles, can certainly do that. And just because we’re not made privy to LeBron James-level bonding experiences between the Clippers doesn’t mean the players don’t like each other.
Indeed, much about this (flawed) perception is on the Clippers themselves. Jordan’s indecision last summer cast a shadow over their emotional dynamic, and Griffin’s off-court injury fiasco didn’t do the squad any favors. But you can tell, both on and off the court, when teammates truly, wholly, genuinely don’t care for each other (sup, 2012-13 Lakers?), and these Clippers just don’t fit that bill.
